


Wisdom In The Face Of Danger

by The Sign of Tea (NoPlastic)



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Aromantic, Aromantic Asexual Sherlock, Asexual Sherlock, Bisexual John, Fluff, Friendship, Missing Scene, Other, Platonic Relationships, Queerplatonic Relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-07
Updated: 2016-02-07
Packaged: 2018-05-18 20:25:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 864
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5941930
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NoPlastic/pseuds/The%20Sign%20of%20Tea
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>On the train ride back to London from the Carmichael house, Sherlock can't stop thinking... about John.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Wisdom In The Face Of Danger

The train rattled and chuffed in a swift but steady rhythm. Compared to a cab ride on a street strewn with potholes, the gentle rocking of the train carriage was a relief. John had fallen asleep, his head resting against the seat upholstery.

Sherlock was restless. He felt empty from exhaustion, but not exhausted enough to be able to stop thinking about his failure. He’d been so close to the solution, not just the solution of the Ricoletti case, but also… another one.

_Miss me?_

The message he’d found on the dead body was unimportant, only made to confuse him, but he couldn’t keep his mind from wandering back to it. It was distracting. He leaned back in his seat and tried to relax a little, so he could focus on the murder of Eustace Carmichael. If Sherlock had only been a little bit cleverer, the man’s life could have been saved.  
Save a life – that was all he’d been expected to do. It hadn’t even been about solving the case in the first place, and still he had failed completely. Mycroft would laugh.

_Balance of probability, little brother._

One day, people would realize the clever detective Sherlock Holmes was mostly a product of John Watson’s imagination. The real man was not half as clever as his companion portrayed him in his stories for The Strand.  
However, no matter how painful the humiliation felt, the case was incredibly important, it needed to be solved at all costs. There was something dark and dangerous behind it that destroyed Sherlock’s sense of reality, like a ghost’s hand scratching on the window panes of the train. He shuddered.

“See, that’s what you’ve done, Watson,” he muttered. “With all your silly ideas about ghosts.”

Outside it was dark, buildings and trees barely visible, although it could not be long before dawn.

Sherlock shifted a little in his seat and stretched his long legs until they touched John’s. Through the fabric of their clothes he could feel his friend’s warmth, the reassurance of his presence.

_Why do you need to be alone?_

What an absolutely unnecessary question. Sherlock wasn’t alone, and for a man with a large cavity instead of a heart, he had more than enough feelings. Enough to have the potential to ruin him entirely.

On the other hand, John probably had his reasons to ask such questions. Sherlock didn’t have an actual physical desire for men to hide, but John Watson did, and he didn’t have a brother working for the government to protect him. 

Just from the lines on the doctor’s face, Sherlock could deduce all of John’s daily (and nightly) activities – but no matter how hard he tried, he could never read the doctor’s thoughts, his feelings, or his dreams. There were so many secrets. The world was a dark and frightening place, and perhaps he shouldn’t have been surprised that John saw ghosts everywhere.

Right now, however, John was snoring peacefully, as if nothing bad could happen. It was a rather adorable sight – this man who brought so much joy into Sherlock’s life, all exhausted from the hunt for the ghost. Sherlock’s anger about their earlier argument in the Carmichael house subsided. John had done what he could. He was the most reliable man Sherlock had ever known, and deep down, he surely knew how important he was to Sherlock as a friend, as a partner.

As if he’d heard these musings about himself (which was possible, since Sherlock often thought out loud without noticing), John stirred and opened his eyes. He blinked and rubbed his face in confusion, probably experiencing some trouble remembering where he was, a common side effect of falling asleep in a place that was not one’s own bed.

“Almost in London again,” Sherlock said to help him. “Home is less than an hour away.”

“Thank you.” John shook his head and grinned. “I had a very strange dream.”  
He turned to the windows, where there was nothing to see but darkness and fog. Perhaps he thought of home, perhaps he was mentally building a bridge across the gap between his dreams and reality.

“Are you afraid of me, Watson?” Sherlock broke the silence after a while.

“Of you?” John snorted. “Of course not.”

They gave each other a fond smile, and John pressed his leg a little more against Sherlock’s before closing his eyes again.

While the night sky slowly turned grey, Sherlock let his mind wander again. This time it went to more peaceful places, hazy mornings in London between hansom cabs, busy pedestrians, and the man who sold the magazines.  
Would people ever stop reading The Strand? Probably. All the little stories printed in it would be forgotten.  
But perhaps one day, in the distant future, somebody would pick up an old copy and read one of Sherlock’s silly adventures. Since it was John who told the stories, the army doctor and his clever detective would become inseparable in the reader’s imagination. On those dusty pages, the two of them would live forever, and Sherlock Holmes would never be alone.

Eventually, the tiredness overcame him. He nodded off and dreamt of pocket telephones and flying machines.


End file.
